Canon and Creed (Interpretation: Resources for the Use of Scripture in the Church)
Overview
How does the church understand the relation between its Scripture and its creedal formulations? Robert W. Jenson answers this important question by showing how canon and creed work are interdependent, and that neither is an adequate or sufficient to guide Christian faith without the help of the other. His book enables contemporary teachers, pastors, and laity to deal with ever-present questions and tensions as the church seeks to hold canon and creed together.
Top Highlights
“It is always a real and vital question: Is the so-called church of today indeed the same community as the church of the apostles? Which is to say, as the church of Christ? To be sure, we are permitted to believe that the gates of hell will not finally prevail against the universal church, but there is no such guarantee for the Presbyterians or the Baptists, as there was none for the great churches of Pergamum or Hippo, now vanished without trace.” (Page 3)
“It may even be that it is precisely because the mutuality of canon and creed has slipped from our grasp that so many other aspects of the church’s life do the same. For canon and creed appeared in the church’s history as—or so the church has believed—Spiritgiven reminders of what sort of community the church must be if it is indeed to be church; thus alienation from the mutual import of canon and creed may be occasioned by, and in turn occasion, alienation from the church’s reason for existence. If we cannot say what it means for the affairs of the church that we have these particular Scriptures, or what convictions center and delimit the life of the church, or how our Scripture and our convictions work together, how do we make an identifiable community?” (Pages 2–3)
“A canon with fuzzy edges, it is maintained, can be authoritative Scripture as well as one with absolutely set edges” (Page 12)
“the church is the community of a message, that the God of Israel has raised his servant Jesus from the dead” (Page 3)
“baptismal confession quickly assumed a relatively fixed form” (Page 16)
- Title: Canon and Creed
- Author: Robert W. Jenson
- Edition: First edition
- Series: Interpretation: Resources for the Use of Scripture in the Church
- Publisher: Westminster John Knox
- Print Publication Date: 2010
- Logos Release Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subject: Apostles’ Creed
- ISBNs: 9780664230548, 0664230547
- Resource ID: LLS:CANONANDCREED
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-12-12T20:11:31Z